Mr. Nothing looked at the man he had become,
the man he had once wanted to be,
and the man he had a chance to grow up into,
and tried to recall the boy doomed to be one of them.
He also wondered which one best suited the poet
with his ridiculous collection of fountain pens and typewriters,
bizarre habits of making sure he shut the door properly
and attachment to words like “perhaps” and “indeed.”
They had been at odds with each other for quite a while,
and only recently, all of a sudden, they found some form
of peaceful, if not harmonious, coexistence.
Mr. Nothing provided the poet with a roof over his head,
five meals a day, and an adequate amount of sleep,
while the poet, in return, amused him on long winter evenings
with tales of his favourite personal pronouns
adrift in a salutary indeterminacy.
hidden pilcrow 